2

A Baker’s Son Awakens

As a result of fanis’s puckishness, Kosmas found himself inside the narrow shop, standing at the unattended counter and waiting to order tea that no one wanted. He looked through the windows and beheld his mother’s friends laughing and chatting, and then his eyes settled on her, the American who resembled the actress Semra Sar in the 1960s films of which Rea was so fond. She had the same ribbon brows, the same downcast glance, and the same tentative smile as that heartbreaking Turkish actress. Wearing only a plain dress and orthopedic sandals, without any makeup as far as he could tell, the American was indeed incredibly beautiful.

Kosmas leaned on the high counter with folded arms, lowered his forehead onto them, and sighed. All he had ever wanted was to become a pâtissier, restore his family business to its former glory, marry a lovely Rum girl, and live a normal life. The first dream he had realized by completing pastry school in Vienna. Since then his mille-feuille had become so famous that he had been asked to give lectures on its preparation at the Istanbul Culinary Institute. Moreover, he was well on the way to doubling the original size of his father’s pastry shop. But he still had not found a bride, and now that a diaspora Rum had appeared in his life, like a golden coin in a Saint Basil’s cake, he didn’t even have the mettle to pay her a compliment.

A Greek voice recalled him from his sulk: “Those look tasty.”

Kosmas raised his head from the counter and saw the American peering into the cookie case. “You’ve got to be joking,” he said.

She cocked her head to one side.

Instinctively switching into culinary-professor mode, he explained: “It’s just pre-prepared frozen stuff that they bring in and bake here. The City has much better to offer. Come by the Lily sometime and you’ll see.” He presented his card.

She stuffed it into the pocket of her cross-body bag. “Is that where you work? At the Lily?”

“It’s our family business.”

“I guess that explains the flour on your pants.”

He looked down and saw the white dusting on his left thigh. Damn it. “Confectioner’s sugar,” he said, brushing it off. “From the mille-feuille.”

She pulled her hair to the nape of her neck, twisted it, and let it fall over her chest in a long coil. “If you’ve got a bakery,” she said, “then why are we here?”

Kosmas straightened his shoulders. “The Lily is a serious pâtisserie. Not a bakery, and definitely not a tea garden.”

“I see. Anyway, I just came in for some napkins. My aunt spilled her tea.”

Kosmas grabbed a stack from the counter and gave them to her. “I’ll have somebody come out and wipe it up.”

“It’s not necessary.” She smiled and held up the wad of napkins. “These are enough.”

He watched her long dress sway as she crossed the patio. When she bent over to clean the table, her buttocks separated. The soft fabric of her skirt draped between. From behind she was almost obscenely beautiful.

As if reading his thoughts, a woman said in Turkish, “Güzeller güzeli.” A beauty of beauties. Kosmas turned back toward the counter and saw his old flame Emine, a Muslim girl who had worked at Neighbor’s House a few years ago, quit, and—apparently—returned. Although civil marriage between Muslims, Jews, and Christians was perfectly legal in Turkey, Kosmas had no desire to marry without the blessing of the Church. Still, he had been unable to prevent himself from being seduced when, one evening after a particularly hard day at the Lily, Emine had insisted on making him Turkish coffee instead of tea. She had carried it with great care so that the foam wouldn’t break and set it gently on the table before him. As she retreated, with the subservience of an odalisque, her arm had brushed his shoulder. A good Turkish girl would never have let that happen by accident. Later that same evening, she’d left Neighbor’s House wearing, instead of her short-sleeved uniform top, a headscarf and raincoat: the creative compromise between secular and religious dress. Kosmas, who had always had a weakness for hijabi women, had been instantly hooked. Nevertheless, it had taken him three months to work up the courage to ask her out, and by that time she was already engaged. Julien had tried to assuage Kosmas’s disappointment. “Don’t worry, my boy,” he’d said. “When one woman leaves your life, ten arrive to take her place.” But the promised ten never came.

“What can I get for you?” said Emine. She had gained a few kilos.

“Nothing,” said Kosmas. “I mean, may I have seven teas, please?”

“Right away.” As Emine arranged the tulip-shaped glasses on a tray, Kosmas discreetly observed her from behind. He visually caressed the wisps of hair escaping the full bun at the nape of her neck; by ten o’clock that evening, they would all be covered with a titillating headscarf.

“Haven’t seen her before,” said Emine, still with her back to him.

“American,” said Kosmas.

Emine dropped two sugar cubes onto each saucer. Without looking up from her work, she said, “You’d better be quick. The men here are going to be all over her.”

“I gave her my card.”

“Did you get hers?”

Kosmas tapped his fingers on the counter. “No.”

Emine sighed. “You have to get hers. She won’t call you.”

“I’ve never been good at these things,” said Kosmas.

“I know.” Emine filled the bottoms of the tulip-shaped glasses with dark-brewed tea. Before topping them off with hot water, she paused. Something had caught her eye. “Are you sure you want seven?”

Kosmas looked out the window. The American lifted an arm as thin as a swan’s neck, waved him goodbye, and left the tea garden with her aunt.

“The extras are for you,” said Kosmas. “My treat.”

“Always such a gentleman,” said Emine, with a fond smile.

“Yeah, for all the good it does me.”

The next morning—Sunday—Kosmas rose early. A few days before, Madame Eva, his mother’s best friend, had offered to arrange a meeting with a Levantine Catholic girl named Rita Tereza. Since the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople allowed marriage with Catholics and Armenian Apostolics—provided they signed a triplicate affidavit saying they would baptize their children Rum Orthodox—Kosmas had agreed to the matchmaking.

As he showered, images of Daphne arranging her long hair flooded his still sleepy mind. So he turned the tap to cold, gave himself a good shock, and said out loud, “She’s a high-class salon type. She’ll never fancy you.”

He shaved with care, all the while fantasizing about Rita Tereza’s blue eyes, which Madame Eva had described as “very sweet.” He imagined that they would go for a walk along the Bosporus after church and stop for tea and sweet börek. The afternoon might end with a tender kiss at her doorstep, which meant that he had to eliminate every last bristle so that it wouldn’t scratch her rose-petal lips. After rinsing and drying, he reached for his Davidoff Cool Water, but it wasn’t in its place on the clothes washer. His mother had probably tossed it somewhere during one of the obsessive ceiling-to-floor bleach-downs she performed at least twice per week with the help of her cleaning lady. He rummaged through Rea’s bin of nail polish, her lipstick drawer, and her hairclip basket, where he finally found the blue–black bottle. He spritzed himself generously. As with pastries, scent was just as important as appearance.

Kosmas dressed in gray pants and a polite white shirt, with the sleeves turned up to the elbows. After pulling his socks as high as they would go—a fixation he had developed as the result of Rea’s distaste for socks pooling at ankles—he slipped on his brown bit loafers, took a quick glance at the cloudy morning sky, grabbed an umbrella, and was out the door.

He climbed Yeni Çarşı Street, turned into the sleepy Grand Avenue, and hurried into a cobbled byway leading to the Panagia church. The rain began just as he was entering the gate. He greeted the two gruff Antiochians serving as guards and waited until he was inside to cross himself because his mother had taught him never to do so in the street. In the night-sky-painted narthex, he lit three candles: one for himself, one for his dead father, and a third for the blue-eyed beauty whom he was about to meet.

Kosmas had never seen the Rum Orthodox churches so full that “there was no room for a pin to drop,” as his elders fondly described the golden days before the 1955 pogrom. On that Sunday, the church contained no more than twenty warm bodies: a dozen old women with flowers and barrettes in their hair; a handful of fifty-something dames in short skirts; a few men in suits; and a couple of Greek tourists in shorts and athletic shoes. A headscarved Russian woman was venerating an icon in the ornate gold-painted iconostasis wall that separated the nave from the sanctuary. Fanis was chanting away at the cantor’s stand and—judging from the way he dragged out the syllables—enjoying his own voice. The well-dressed Rum women congregated near the bishop’s throne, where they could see and be seen. The Rum men had taken positions near the door, through which they could easily escape for a cigarette. Tourists were strolling up and down the aisles, looking at the ceiling and snapping photos as if they were in a museum.

Madame Eva entered, brushed Kosmas’s back, and whispered, “Today’s the big day.”

“Where is she?” he asked.

Just then the priest appeared in the Beautiful Gate of the iconostasis and blessed the congregation. Kosmas and Eva crossed their right hands over their chests and bowed in reply. A lady wearing old-fashioned lace gloves and a wide-brimmed hat emerged from behind the left-side stasidia, the wooden stalls with high arms that helped the Orthodox remain standing during long services. Kosmas wondered if the lady was Rita Tereza. Only Levantine women wore hats in churches. But as the woman traversed the red runner stretching from the Beautiful Gate to the entrance, Kosmas noticed that she had albino white skin, wore bottle-cap glasses, and walked with a pronounced hobble. Obviously not Rita Tereza.

As soon as the priest had withdrawn into the sanctuary, Madame Eva said, “Be patient.” She squeezed Kosmas’s arm and settled into one of the right-aisle stasidia that still retained the name plates of formerly privileged—and now dead—parishioners.

Kosmas lingered by the entrance with the other men. Every time the heavy narthex door squeaked open, he listened to the footsteps. At first he thought he was listening for Rita Tereza, and then he realized he was also hoping for Madame Gavriela’s niece. Every time he was disappointed, for he could tell from the lazy shuffle that the entrant was just another old person. The American had either stayed home that morning or gone to Holy Trinity. As for Rita Tereza, perhaps she had slipped in before him and hidden behind one of the faux-marble basilica columns, freshly painted green during the church’s recent restoration.

Finally the grizzly priest chanted an unmelodious benediction. Kosmas lined up with the others to receive his square of blessed antidoron bread. As soon as he had taken it, Fanis stepped down from the cantor’s stand, grabbed Kosmas’s arm, and nodded toward the albino, who was praying before the iconostasis icon of the Holy Mother. “Watch out for that one,” Fanis whispered. “She’s been after me for months. I’ll have to disappear as soon as we’re done . . . or she’ll eat me alive.”

“Sure, Mr. Fanis,” said Kosmas.

After venerating almost every icon in the church, Madame Eva led Kosmas across the courtyard.

“She didn’t come, did she?” he said.

“Be patient,” Madame Eva repeated. They entered the bright tea room, whose shelves were full of community antiques, including leather-bound codices, a desk clock, and donation boxes that resembled old clothes irons with wooden handles. There was a box for the church’s lighting, another for the soup kitchen, another for the long-closed orphanage, and yet another for the Zografeion Lyceum, Kosmas’s alma mater.

“Let my tea be light, please,” said Madame Eva, to the guardian, as they took their seats. “The doctor says that too much caffeine doesn’t combine well with my medications.”

“Same for us,” said an octogenarian with a purple lily in her chignon.

The lame woman with eyes of ice limped into the tea room and dropped herself into the free chair next to Kosmas.

“Rita Tereza,” said Madame Eva, still speaking Greek, “I’d like you to meet Kosmas. Kosmas, Rita Tereza, a graduate of the Liceo Italiano and the University of Rome. She’s also a brilliant watercolor painter, aren’t you, dear?”

Kosmas wanted to protest. She could not possibly be his Rita Tereza. Then he recalled his passing years, his awkwardness, his lack of luck with women, and a rhyme that his father had coined about their lame but pretty neighbor Madame Aglaia, who always had difficulty climbing their hilly street: “She huffs and puffs, but she’s still got a muff.” So Kosmas made up his mind to be sociable and give Rita Tereza a chance.

“Pleased to meet you,” said Kosmas in Turkish. “Ι’ve always thought that multicultural people are the wealthiest of all.”

She smiled and bashfully lowered her eyes—or at least so he thought. It was difficult to see what was happening behind her thick glasses.

“Is this your first time at an Orthodox church?” he asked.

“My grandmother was Rum,” Rita Tereza replied in Greek. “She taught me the language. And all churches are the same to me.”

It was a pleasant answer, and Rita Tereza’s Greek was impeccable. Up close—and in a seated position—there was indeed something sweet about her, just as Madame Eva had said. “Are you a professional painter then?” he asked.

Rita Tereza pushed up her glasses with a gloved finger. “I’m a speech therapist. For special-needs children.”

A caring profession, thought Kosmas. She would probably make a good mother.

“Kosmas, dear,” said Madame Eva, rising slightly and then reseating herself, “what was the prestigious prize you won a few months ago?”

“The Pfeifenberger. For my wedding cakes.”

“He’s very talented. Rita Tereza, what’s your favorite pastry? I’m sure he makes it.”

“I’m diabetic,” she said.

“Üf!” said Madame Eva, blowing through pursed lips. “Never mind that, then. Kosmas, your mother never told me if you have any hobbies. I always hear about your awards and distinctions, but do you do anything else?”

“I’ve never had time. Except for reading history, especially architectural, and studying Ottoman Turkish. But I’ve always wanted to learn ballroom dance. What about you, Rita Tereza, have you ever thought of taking dance lessons?”

Madame Eva elbowed Kosmas and whispered, “She can’t!”

At that moment, the old lady with the purple lily in her hair said, “Smile for Facebook!”

Rita Tereza adjusted her glasses, leaned in toward Kosmas, and pulled a smile. As soon as the flash had gone off, she directed her attention toward the other end of the table.

In an attempt to make amends, Kosmas grabbed Rita Tereza’s empty tea glass and took it into the church office, which doubled as a coffee- and tea-making station. While filling it, he noticed an almost empty coffee cup resting on the desk of the decrepit, nearly deaf priest. It was obvious from the way the fine grounds were spilled into the saucer that someone had been reading his future in their designs.

The priest came in and took a drag on the cigarette smoking in the desk ashtray.

“Father,” said Kosmas, “isn’t coffee-reading forbidden by the Church?”

The priest blew smoke toward the ceiling. “Pardon?”

Kosmas pointed to the overturned cup and raised his voice as much as he could without sounding disrespectful: “Is coffee-reading allowed? I mean, can clerics do that?”

The father righted the cup, covered it with a napkin, and winked. “You’re still a bachelor, aren’t you, Kosmaki?” he said. “Are you aware that no one in Pera gets married without my authorization?”

“Of course, Father,” said Kosmas. “If you’ll excuse me.”

Kosmas returned to the tea room hoping that Rita Tereza might have forgotten his faux pas. But she frowned when he delivered her tea, turned her back when he sat down, and resumed a heated debate with the lily-adorned old lady about the nutritional value of white flour. Another bride lost.

Kosmas was the first to depart. Halfway down the hill, at the point where Yeni Çarşı becomes Boğazkesen Street, he stopped and looked up at the birds sweeping through the stratified glow around the dome of Kılıç Ali Paşa Mosque. Now that was architecture: a mosque built on the model of Hagia Sophia for Ali Paşa, a sixteenth-century Italian corsair who had converted to Islam and later become an Ottoman admiral. The complex was designed by Mimar Sinan, a converted Rum and the chief architect to three Ottoman sultans, including Suleiman the Magnificent. For a second, Kosmas thought that maybe he, too, should stop wasting his energy and convert, like Ali Paşa and Mimar Sinan. Then he lowered his head beneath his umbrella and walked on.

He didn’t want to return home to his mother, yet on a rainy Sunday morning there were few places to go. Without any particular destination in mind, he trudged down to the Bosporus, wandered through the muddy seaside park where working-class families picnicked on sunny days, and took a seat at one of the tea gardens. What he really wanted was to see Gavriela’s niece, but she was probably still in bed.

He ordered a toasted cheese sandwich and settled down to watch the boats gliding between the Asian and European shores within the strait and across the mouth of the Sea of Marmara. Waves crashed against the quay and sprang up like fountains, leaving pools of saltwater on the rough cement. On the other side of the inland sea, the mountains of Anatolia rose into low gray clouds. Kosmas wondered, as he always did while watching Istanbul’s waters and the smooth movement of the ferries, why he still lived in the City of his isolation, where he didn’t seem to have the slightest chance of ever finding a Rum wife. Perhaps he should have left long ago for America, Canada, Australia, or Greece, like everybody else. But now he had his pâtisserie and an aging mother on his head. It was too late.

A waiter with a full tray of tea glasses made his way through the tables. Kosmas raised a finger. The man set a glass before him. The seagulls, which seemed to have more of a right to the City than anyone, uttered murderous cries when a hobby fisherman emptied a plastic bucket of fish heads onto the quay. Within minutes, nothing but a water-blood trail remained. As Kosmas watched the poor Sunday fishermen casting their lines into the gray Bosporus, he wished to God that he could be like Fanis, who knew the names of all the female cashiers at the local supermarket, never exited without saying hello to each, and sat in the tea garden like a pasha while women of all ages came to kiss his cheeks and forehead. Kosmas, on the other hand, had never even worked up the courage to ask for Emine’s phone number.

Κosmas was sick of the moldy angels of love who worked in Tarlabaşı’s derelict Rum houses: the last prostitute he had visited had filed her nails while he toiled away and then charged him extra to touch her breasts. Kosmas had vowed to change on numerous occasions, yet he couldn’t manage to assume the confident, carefree air that enabled Fanis to acquire the numbers of half the women of Pera. He had tried impressing the American with his new business card—complete with the gold-embossed Pfeifenberger symbol—but she hadn’t even deemed it worthy of a glance. He realized that part of the problem was that he had a penchant for cultivated “salon girls,” but look what had happened when he gave homely Rita Tereza a chance. If she had no interest in him, how could he possibly aspire to please Gavriela’s niece?

“My God,” he said out loud, “if only you had made me like Fanis.”

And then he had it. He would go straight to the source, to Fanis, and ask the old rascal to become his mentor. He took his phone from his pocket, called Monsieur Julien, and scribbled Fanis Paleologos’s phone number on a napkin.